Owner

Current status

Logic is now in rawhide (in systemd 30), patches for some subsystems (X11, accountsservice) ready.
These patches have been put into F16 packages.
The necessary gdm [patches] are still in testing.
Patches for many ConsoleKit users in GNOME are available, and most of them have been merged by now.

Detailed Description

Automatic multi-seat support

Make systemd available in the session

Removal of XDG_SESSION_COOKIE and its security problems, emphasis on audit loginuid and cgroup names instead

On-Demand starting of VT gettys

Covering all of getty, SSH and X11 sessions

Make session exit of pam_systemd more robust

Introduce D-Bus user bus

allow systemd user services to be run outside of a session, for selected users, a la cron with cron.allow

When we reach the point where ConsoleKit is actually dropped, additionally

Simplify our stack by removing CK

Fix the 63 threads CK VT watching issue

This feature introduces a new systemd daemon, systemd-logind, which takes over a lot of the
logic of pam_systemd (which is reduced to a small stub that is a lot more robust)
as well as ConsoleKit and udev-acl. systemd-logind can be configured in systemd-logind.conf and controlled via systemd-loginctl.

Benefit to Fedora

Things become safer, cleaner and smaller. We add automatic multi-seat support. We can optionally start user services outside of a login (e.g. a per-user Rygel on boot without having the user to log in).

How To Test

Test Multi-Seat support (ideally with hardware from plugable): plug in plugable hw and you should instantly get a new gdm display on the seat

You should have 6 gettys on tty1-6

To test ConsoleKit removal, inspect that manifest of the desktop spin and verify that it does not include ConsoleKit.

Test that other desktops pull in ConsoleKit, if they still need it. Also verify that ConsoleKit continues to work as expected when it is installed. This can be done e.g. with the help of ck-list-sessions

User Experience

Plugging in certain multi-seat hw should just work: i.e. make a gdm appear on it.

Dependencies

Contingency Plan

Until the 'ckremoval' part of this feature is complete, ConsoleKit will continue to
be available simultaneously as the new logic. The multiseat part of this feature
can be used even if ConsoleKit has not been completely removed.

If the multiseat part of this feature does not get completed, we can just disable the systemd specific login manager
again and things should work as previously.

Release Notes

Fedora 17 is using systemd as a login manager. For details, see
systemd-logind.conf(5) and systemd-loginctl(1). This provides automatic multi-seat support. The login manager part of systemd supersedes ConsoleKit functionality.

[if ckremoval is complete] ConsoleKit is no longer installed by default.

[if ckremoval is not complete] ConsoleKit is still available to support parts of the system that have not been ported to the new
systemd APIs.